NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to order what he called “truly extraordinary” military strikes on Iran in a series of text messages before the military alliance meets in the Netherlands.
Those messages, which Trump posted to his social media platform, Truth Social, reveal Rutte was impressed that Trump decided to hit Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend, a decision the military alliance chief said “no one else dared to do.”
Rutte, who was the Dutch prime minister before taking the top job at NATO, said Trump’s order to take on the Iranian regime “makes us all safer.”
The messages, which a Rutte spokesperson confirmed to CBC News are authentic, were sent hours before Trump and other world leaders, including Prime Minister Mark Carney, are set to meet in The Hague for this year’s NATO summit, a meeting where the focus is on making the alliance “stronger, fairer and more lethal,” according to organizers.
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Rutte said Trump’s longstanding call for NATO members to spend much more on defence is starting to bear fruit — and he credited the U.S. president personally for getting members to come up with more money.
“You are flying into another big success in The Hague this evening. It was not easy but we’ve got them all signed on to five per cent,” Rutte said, adding Europe is “going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.”
“Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world,” Rutte said. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”
Rutte has said publicly it’s his goal to have all 32 members of the alliance pledge this week to boost defence expenditures to five per cent of GDP, a key demand of Trump, who has long complained that the U.S. pays too much for defence compared to other NATO allies.
NATO’s members have reportedly reached a compromise deal to dedicate at least 3.5 per cent of GDP to core military needs by 2035, and 1.5 per cent to broader security-related items like cybersecurity and infrastructure. That’s a big jump from the two per cent goal set in 2014, which is now considered inadequate given Russia’s militarization and other global security threats.
Canada has long been a laggard on military spending, but on Carney’s watch it has become much more of a priority.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau announced last year Canada would hit the previous NATO spending target by 2032.
Earlier this month, Carney said the new government led by him will hit that mark this year.
Now, Canada and other NATO members may be forced to go much further. Carney has previously expressed confidence in Canada’s ability to hit the defence infrastructure potion relatively easily given investments in critical minerals, which are ubiquitous in military equipment, can be included.
In an interview with CNN International on Tuesday, Carney said the spending target is still a decade away and there’s time to figure out how to meet Canada’s requirements.
He said meeting that new target would cost up to $150 billion a year.
“I’m not signing a bunch of postdated cheques for the hardware, military hardware, today,” he said.
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